The Eleventh Commandment (1998) Read online

  He left his study and strode down the long marble corridor of the newly commandeered office block towards the open door, his entourage moving swiftly ahead of him. He paused for a moment on the top step to look down at the gleaming motorcade. He had instructed Party officials that he must always have one more limousine than any previous President.

  He climbed into the back of the third car and checked his watch: seven forty-three. The police had cleared the road an hour before so that the motorcade could proceed without encountering a single vehicle travelling in either direction. Holding up the traffic makes the local inhabitants aware that the President is in town, he explained to his Chief of Staff.

  The traffic police estimated that the journey, which would normally have taken twenty minutes, should be completed in less than seven. As Zerimski shot through traffic lights of whatever colour and swung across the river, he didn’t even glance in the direction of the Hermitage. Once they reached the other side of the Neva, the driver of the leading car pushed the speedometer up to a hundred kilometres an hour to be sure the President would be on time for his first official engagement that morning.

  As he lay on his bunk, the prisoner could hear the guards marching down the stone passageway towards him, the noise of their boots becoming a little louder with each step. He wondered how many of them there would be. They stopped outside his cell. A key turned in the lock and the door swung open. When you have only moments to live, you notice every detail.

  Bolchenkov led them in. The prisoner was impressed that he had got back so quickly. He lit a cigarette and inhaled once before offering it to the prisoner. He shook his head. The Chief shrugged his shoulders, ground the cigarette out on the stone floor with his foot, and left to greet the President.

  The next person to enter the cell was the priest. He was carrying a large open bible and softly chanting some words that meant nothing to the prisoner. Next were three men he recognised immediately. But this time there was no razor, no needle, just a pair of handcuffs. They stared at him, almost willing him to put up a fight, but to their disappointment he calmly placed his hands behind his back and waited. They slapped on the cuffs and pushed him out of the cell into the corridor. At the end of the long grey tunnel he could just make out a pinprick of sunlight.

  The President stepped out of his limousine, to be welcomed by the Chief of Police. It amused him that he had awarded Bolchenkov the Order of Lenin on the same day as he had signed an order to arrest his brother.

  Bolchenkov led Zerimski into the yard where the execution would take place. No one suggested removing the President’s fur-lined coat or hat on such a bitterly cold morning. As they crossed the courtyard, the small crowd huddled up against one wall began to applaud. The Chief saw a frown cross Zerimski’s face. The President had expected far more people to turn up to witness the execution of a man who had been sent to kill him.

  Bolchenkov had anticipated that this might present a problem, so he leaned over and whispered in the President’s ear, ‘I was instructed to permit only Party members to attend.’ Zerimski nodded. Bolchenkov didn’t add how difficult it had been to drag even the few people present into the Crucifix that morning. Too many of them had heard the stories of how, once you were in, you never got out.

  The Chief came to a halt by a plush eighteenth-century chair that Catherine the Great had bought from the estate of the British Prime Minister Robert Walpole in 1779, and that had been requisitioned from the Hermitage the previous day. The President sank into the comfortable seat directly in front of the newly erected gallows.

  After only a few seconds Zerimski began fidgeting impatiently as he waited for the prisoner to appear. He looked across at the crowd, and his eyes rested on a young boy who was crying. It didn’t please him.

  At that moment the prisoner emerged from the dark corridor into the stark morning light. The bald head covered in dried blood and the thin grey prison uniform made him look strangely anonymous. He appeared remarkably calm for someone who had only a few more moments to live.

  The condemned man stared up into the morning sun and shivered as an officer of the guard marched forward, grabbed his left wrist and checked the number: 12995. The officer then turned to face the President and read out the court order.

  While the officer went through the formalities, the prisoner looked around the yard. He saw the shivering crowd, most of them wary of moving a muscle for fear that they might be ordered to join him. His eyes settled on the boy, who was still weeping. If they had allowed him to make a will, he would have left everything to that child. He glanced briefly at the scaffold, then settled his gaze on the President. Their eyes met. Although he was terrified, the prisoner held Zerimski’s gaze. He was determined not to let him have the satisfaction of knowing just how frightened he was. If the President had stopped staring back at him and looked down at the ground between his feet, he would have seen for himself.

  The officer, having completed his commission, rolled up his scroll and marched away. This was the sign for two of the thugs to come forward, grab one of the prisoner’s arms each, and lead him to the scaffold.

  He walked calmly past the President and on towards the gallows. When he reached the first of the wooden steps, he glanced up at the clock tower. Three minutes to eight. Few people, he thought, ever know exactly how long they have left to live. He almost willed the clock to strike. He had waited twenty-eight years to repay his debt. Now, in these final moments, it all came back to him.

  It had been a hot, sweaty May morning in Nan Dinh. Someone had to be made an example of, and as the senior officer, he had been singled out. His second-in-command had stepped forward and volunteered to take his place. And, like the coward he was, he had not protested. The Vietcong officer had laughed and accepted the offer, but then decided that both men should face the firing squad the following morning.

  In the middle of the night, the same Lieutenant had come to his bedside and said they must try to escape. They would never have another chance. Security at the camp was always lax, because to the north lay a hundred miles of jungle occupied by the Vietcong, and to the south twenty-five miles of impenetrable swamp. Several men had tried their luck with that route before, and their luck had run out.

  The Lieutenant said he would rather risk dying in the swamps than face the certainty of death by firing squad. As he stole away into the night, the Captain had reluctantly joined him. When the sun appeared above the horizon a few hours later, the camp was still within sight. Across the stinking, mosquito-infested swamp they could hear the guards laughing as they took turns to fire potshots at them. They had dived below the surface of the swamp, but after only a few seconds they had to come up and struggle on. Eventually, after the longest day of his life, darkness fell. He had begged the Lieutenant to carry on without him, but he had refused.

  By the end of the second day, he wished he had been allowed to face the firing squad instead of dying in that godforsaken swamp in that godforsaken country. But on and on the young officer went. For eleven days and twelve nights they didn’t eat, surviving only by drinking from the endless torrents of rain. On the twelfth morning they reached dry land and, delirious from illness and exhaustion, he collapsed. He later learned that for four more days the Lieutenant had carried him through the jungle to safety.

  The next thing he recalled was waking in an army hospital.

  ‘How long have I been here?’ he asked the nurse who was tending him.

  ‘Six days,’ she said. ‘You’re lucky to be alive.’

  ‘And my friend?’

  ‘He’s been up for the past couple of days. He’s already visited you once this morning.’

  He fell asleep again, and when he woke he asked the nurse for a pen and paper. He spent the rest of the day sitting in his hospital bed writing and rewriting the citation. When he had made a fair copy, he asked that it should be sent to the commanding officer.

  Six months later, he had stood on the White House lawn between Maggie and her father